Using your dental insurance or dental health plan to its fullest extent can help you maintain excellent dental health at an affordable cost. Macleod Trail Dental has outlined some important points to consider when planning to use your insurance or dental health benefits to pay for a dental treatment plan. These include tips on managing multiple plans, suggestions for appointment scheduling, as well as information about direct billing. For an outline of different types of dental plans as well as what benefits and coverage you may be entitled to, see our previous blog post on Understanding Your Dental Benefits.
Tips to Maximize Your Dental Coverage and Plan Your Dental Treatment
Manage dual or overlapping plans to ensure complete coverage.
At times, an individual or family might be covered by two separate health plans. For example, two members of a household may have plans that extend to other family members, or a college or university student may be covered by parents’ work insurance plans as well as a group student plan.
Tip – While it is usually possible to opt out of or end one plan, it may be well worth keeping a second plan that covers any “gaps” in the first plan’s coverage. For example, one plan may cover restorative work while a second covers only cleaning.
Tip – In order to be certain about the amount of a treatment that will be covered prior to an appointment, especially when multiple plans are involved, it is suggested to get a dentist’s pre-assessment.
Plan the timing of appointments so the full treatment plan is covered.
Dental insurance is often renewed on a yearly basis. Some plans may also have a total coverage limit for certain types of treatments.
Tip – If the end of your coverage year is approaching, it might be effective to begin a treatment before one year expires, so that any follow-up or subsequent appointments are covered in the next year.
Use Direct Billing to make claim submission process less stressful
With direct insurance billing, dentists send an electronic bill directly to the insurance provider and the patient pays the difference. At Macleod Trail Dental, we are to provide our patients the best dental care in Calgary, with the option to do direct billing. For more information about our direct billing, visit our page about direct insurance billing and financial policies.
Tip-A pre-assessment can help determine how much of the cost will be covered by the health plan, and how much of the cost the you will be billed.
Tip- If you wish to submit a claim form directly to your insurance provider, it is important to know if there is a time limit on how how long after the treatment you can submit a claim.
For further information about how your plan covers different types of treatment, as well as information about our direct billing and financial policies, contact us by phone at 403-253-1248 or by email at info@macleodtraildental.ca.
